Agawam officials upbeat about prospects for business development during 2012

Republican photo/ Michael S. GordonAgawam Mayor Richard A. Cohen and Director of Planning and Community Development Deborah S. Dachos in front of Agawam Town Hall.

AGAWAM – The city is upbeat about the outlook for 2012 based on a belief that the economy has turned a corner.

“I’m very optimistic. I commend the Planning Department and the planning director,” Mayor Richard A. Cohen said during a recent interview. “I have been working very hard in difficult times, not only with businesses, but with the Agawam Small Business Association and the West of the River Chamber of Commerce. Eventually people will see the positive outcomes of our diligent work.”

Adds Deborah S. Dachos, planning and community development director, “We are seeing projects come forward. There are a lot of people looking around now to expand and make moves.”

Among the projects now in the works are:

Õ¤Plans for a new industrial park behind the Department of Public Works headquarters on Suffield Street;

Õ¤Reuse of the long vacant Sportsmen’s Club property; and

Õ¤Filling vacant space in the former Food Mart site on Springfield Street.

Last year saw the opening of a Salvation Army Family Center thrift shop in a portion of the Food Mart building as well as a slot-car racing center for families.

With only the former Fisher Scientific, a distributor of science equipment, space left open in the city’s industrial park, officials are turning their attention to developing a second industrial park.

That effort is focused on an approximately 24-acre parcel behind the DPW. Progress has been slowed because the site is traversed and used by a population of box turtles, a species considered endangered by the state Natural Heritage Program, according to the mayor and development director.

The city must come up with a plan to protect the turtles before the project can proceed, and municipal leaders are working with state officials to address it.

There are also strong efforts to redevelop the long-vacant former Games & Lanes property at 350 Walnut St. It has been empty and became an eyesore after a fire more than 10 years ago.

“This is the site we get the most questions and concerns about,” Dachos said.

OUTLOOK 2012

It and the former sportsmen’s club are the city’s two brownfields sites. The Games & Lanes property is contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals left behind by the former Standard Uniform, a uniform rental business that dry-cleaned its wear at the site. Property owner Manfred Tidor has spent more than $1 million trying to clean it up, according to Cohen and Dachos.

The sportsmen’s club property is contaminated with lead and arsenic from having been the setting of many turkey shoots over the years. City officials are working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to remove an $817,000 lien on the property to cover remediation. They are also arranging for deed restrictions which ban use of the club property and the adjacent School Street Park for growing food for human consumption.

Local contractor Thomas Russo, the driving force behind lots of development in the city, would like to build a condominium project at the sportsmen’s club site.

On the dining front, the operators of Opa Opa Restaurant in Southampton are eyeing the now-vacant Pananas Restaurant site at 916 Suffield St. for a new venue, Cohen and Dachos said.

On a public service front, the YMCA of Greater Springfield hopes to locate a storefront Y-Express program in Agawam within the next year. Cohen said sites near the Morgan and Sullivan Bridge over the Westfield River that connects Agawam with West Springfield are being considered for the Y program. 